I could see them sitting in the kitchen, his worried potato head and her frantic little body huddled around the phone. She was listening in. I could hear her breathing. Even her silence was a ploy. I hung up and threw the phone away.

Manfred stepped out from the shadow of the building.

“You know, Roxanne, you should bring that little creature back to her mother,” he said, looking down at me. His yellow visor cast a jaundiced glow on his blue-black skin, making him look green.

“Were you listening to my conversation?” I asked.

“I don’t have to. I can imagine your story. I am a writer, after all,” he added, smiling to reveal his strong, white, prominent canines. His eyes were black, the whites gleaming. Manfred was the healthiest-looking person I had ever seen.

As I climbed the steps onto the bus, I met Harvest descending. He looked disheveled and had clearly just woken up. As he passed me, he touched my fingers, sort of half held my hand, then let go. I looked up at him, confused. I had thought he despised me. He didn’t return my glance, just walked off the bus as the doors closed with a hiss.

In the back, Holly was reading on a tablet.

“She’s still sleeping, I just checked her,” she said.

“I talked to my mom,” I said.

“What did you do that for?”

“I used a burner phone. I just wanted her to know we were okay.”

“What did she say?” asked Holly, squinting up at me peevishly from the tablet. Her glamour was in her body, I realized, in the way she moved and spoke. When she was just sitting there, in a sweatshirt, she looked like a skinny kid.

“She asked where we were,” I said.

“The sooner we all split up, the less likely they are to find us,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean they know you and I are together and, who knows, they might have figured out about the band. I say we go to the concert tonight and then go our separate ways.”

I thought about this and began to panic.

“Where will you go?”

“Manfred said I could stay with him for a while. I’ve fallen for him big time.”

“When did you have time to fall for Manfred?”

“Remember that little gap between when he went swimming and when we all got on the bus?”

“Yeah.”

“Then.”

“Wow.”

“You wanted to start a new life,” Holly said, waving her hand.

Harvest got back on the bus just then. He sat down near the front and turned toward me.

“Hey, Rox,” he said.

I walked over to him, my palms skimming the rough tops of the seats. “What?” I asked. Harvest patted the seat beside him. I sat down, feeling the warmth of his body on my arm. He opened a paper bag. It was full of candy.